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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its final safety evaluation report (SER) for the proposed renewal of the operating licenses for the Beaver Valley Power Station, Units 1 and 2, and concluded that there are no open items that would preclude license renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. The report documents the results of the NRC staff's review of the license renewal application and site audits of the plant's aging management programs to address the safety of plant operations during the period of extended operation. Overall, the results show that the applicant has identified actions that have been or will be taken to manage the effects of aging in the appropriate safety systems, structures and components of the plant and that their functions will be maintained during the period of extended operation. Beaver Valley Power Station units are pressurized-water reactors, located in Shippingport (Beaver County), Pa., and operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. The current operating licenses for Beaver Valley, Units 1 and 2 are due to expire on Jan. 29, 2016, and May 27, 2027, respectively. On Aug. 28, 2007, FirstEnergy submitted an application for a 20-year license extension for each unit. In a letter dated June 8, Brian Holian, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation's Division of License Renewal, provided FirstEnergy with the SER. The SER will be available on the NRC's Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/bvalley.html. Issuing the final SER is a significant milestone in a license renewal review.

FirstEnergy Corp. faces disciplinary action because its Davis-Besse operators "failed to recognize the hazard to the station's operations" caused by a June 25 explosion inside the electrical transmission switchyard, according to a letter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent to the utility. The NRC's letter, dated Monday, said operators should have immediately recognized the explosion met federal emergency action level conditions for declaring an alert. The agency said it will allow FirstEnergy to explain in greater detail what happened before deciding whether to proceed with enforcement. The explosion occurred as repairs were being made to electrical equipment. There were no injuries or radiation releases and the nuclear reactor never stopped operating.

FirstEnergy Corp. faces disciplinary action because its Davis-Besse operators "failed to recognize the hazard to the station's operations" caused by a June 25 explosion inside the electrical transmission switchyard, according to a letter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent to the utility. The NRC's letter, dated Monday, said operators should have immediately recognized the explosion met federal emergency action level conditions for declaring an alert. The agency said it will allow FirstEnergy to explain in greater detail what happened before deciding whether to proceed with enforcement. The explosion occurred as repairs were being made to electrical equipment. There were no injuries or radiation releases and the nuclear reactor never stopped operating.

FirstEnergy Corp.'s application for renewal of licenses to continue operating the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station is on hold until the company resolves a safety issue, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported Thursday. During inspections in June and July, the NRC found two flooded manholes containing medium-voltage cables that provide electricity to reactor pumps. The NRC determined that the water could potentially degrade the cables and cause them to fail. FirstEnergy last year applied for 20-year extensions of licenses to operate the Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactors at Shippingport. The Unit 1 license expires in 2016 and the one for Unit 2 expires in 2027. The inspections were part of the license renewal process.

FirstEnergy, owner of Davis-Besse nuclear power plant and operator of seven electric utility companies, laid off 335 employees Tuesday. Advertisement FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin said 29 of those worked in the Toledo area, which includes Davis-Besse, but Durbin couldn't say how many Davis-Besse employees were laid off. "Employees were notified today," Durbin said, "and severance packages were given." Durbin said packages included 1.5 weeks' pay for every full year of service as well the company's continuing contribution toward health benefits during that time. Durbin said the layoffs covered FirstEnergy's entire operation, which includes portions of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland. "It's something we didn't want to do," he said, "but based on the current economic climate it's something we had to do." Durbin said lower energy consumption by residential, industrial and business customers meant the company had to cut its operations, as well.

"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a special inspection team to FirstEnergy Corp's 879-megawatt Davis-Besse nuclear power plant to look into indications of cracks in multiple reactor vessel head nozzles. Stocks | Industrials | Utilities The NRC said there was no danger to the public from these cracks since the plant has been shut for scheduled refueling. Before the plant can resume operations, the NRC said it must be satisfied the problem has been addressed. Earlier this week, FirstEnergy could not say whether the repairs would add to the length of the refueling outage."

"Until FirstEnergy Corp. implements measures to ensure Davis-Besse nuclear plant's reactor does not violate federal health and safety regulations, the Oak Harbor nuclear plant should not be allowed to restart, the Union of Concerned Scientists said. The science group Monday asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep Davis-Besse idle until it solves problems with leaking cracks in its reactor. Federal regulations require reactors be shut down immediately whenever such leakage occurs, it noted. FirstEnergy does not yet have a time line for when Davis-Besse - which was idled Feb. 28 for normal refueling and maintenance - is expected to be repaired and restarted, spokesman Todd Schneider said. Several of Davis-Besse's 69 control-rod drive mechanism nozzles were found to be cracked or otherwise damaged, and some had leaked. A repair plan is to be submitted to the NRC."

Six of 11 groundwater-monitoring wells on FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse nuclear complex are well below the government's threshold for radioactive tritium, according to results the utility released yesterday. Results on the other five wells are expected next week, spokesman Todd Schneider said. The six wells on which FirstEnergy has data are ones most prone to leak radioactive tritium, which the company found on Oct. 22, Mr. Schneider said. Tritium is a water-based, radioactive material that is a by-product of nuclear fission and a natural substance in the environment.

Andrew Siemaszko, a former nuclear safety engineer at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, will go on trial this Friday for allegedly lying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about conditions leading to a near-disaster at the plant in 2002. NRC documents, however, show that Siemaszko is not to blame. It was FirstEnergy, the plant's owners, which falsified reports to the NRC, not Siemaszko. In fact, Siemaszko was one work shift away from discovering the problem at Davis-Besse while cleaning the reactor head in 2000, but FirstEnergy prevented him from completing his task.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed its final environmental impact statement for the Beaver Valley Power Station Units 1 and 2, and concluded that there are no environmental impacts that would preclude license renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. Beaver Valley Power Station units are pressurized-water reactors, located in Shippingport (Beaver County), Pa., and operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. The current operating licenses for Beaver Valley Unit 1 and 2 are due to expire on Jan. 29, 2016, and May 27, 2027, respectively. On Aug. 28, 2007, FirstEnergy submitted an application for a 20-year license extension for each unit.

FirstEnergy Corp. believes it has determined what caused the hole discovered last week in the steel lining of a reactor containment building at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station. The hole, measuring about 1 inch by 3/8 inch, in the Unit 1 reactor containment building was discovered Thursday during a routine inspection. The reactor had been shut down earlier last week as part of a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. The containment building is built of 4-foot-thick concrete walls with a 3/8-inch-thick steel liner underneath the concrete. Company spokesman Todd Schneider said workers enlarged the hole and found a 2-by-4-inch board embedded in the concrete, touching the steel liner. FirstEnergy believes moisture from the board, which has been there since at least 1976 when the reactor first went online, caused the steel to corrode.

Thursday's discovery of a small hole in the steel lining of the reactor containment building of Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station's Unit 1 wasn't the first time a breach has been found there, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman said Saturday. Before Thursday's discovery, no radiation was released from the building, and there was "no impact to the public health or safety of any employees," FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider said Friday evening. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said that in 2006, corrosion was found in the lining of the same containment building when the reactor was shut down so that FirstEnergy could replace the reactor lid and three steam generators. The Unit 1 reactor has been shut down since Monday for scheduled refueling and maintenance. As part of that routine work, the containment building around the reactor was inspected, Schneider said.

"Ultrasonic tests completed Sunday night show 12 of the 69 nozzles on top of Davis-Besse's reactor head developed some sort of crack, eight more than previously known. Those 12 are among 14 that FirstEnergy Corp. identified last week of having suspicious flaws, or indications, of a crack that needed further examination, Todd Schneider, utility spokesman, said. A company report the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made public on March 15 stated that FirstEnergy could confirm only four cracks at that time. But the utility also said it hadn't yet tested 17 of the 69 nozzles."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday released internal records that show one of its senior employees filed a pair of complaints questioning the agency's own diligence in obtaining Davis-Besse documents from FirstEnergy Corp. in 2005 and 2007. Those records also show the employee, Jim Gavula, was later told by NRC brass that the agency - highly critical of FirstEnergy in the past - believes it did everything within its power to get more cooperation. Mr. Gavula, an NRC employee for 24 years who now helps the agency review technical documents, filed the complaints as a senior reactor inspector in 2006 and 2008. Such records, often kept secret, were authorized by Mr. Gavula to be made public."

"A cracked containment lid at a nuclear power plant in Ohio needs replacing, and a new one will be installed in 2011, plant officials say. FirstEnergy Corp. has purchased a replacement lid for the Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo, Ohio, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Monday. The plant has been closed since Feb. 28 for work to repair cracks in its lid. Such cracks can allow radioactive coolant into the facilities containment building, the newspaper said."

"Three degrees might not sound like much. But according to FirstEnergy Corp., a three-degree reduction in Davis-Besse's operating temperature will provide enough safety over the next two years to ensure there is no additional cracking of the steel nozzles that penetrate the reactor's interim head. Now it's up to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether it agrees with the utility's analysis of what caused 24 of the massive steel device's 69 nozzles to either develop flaws or full-blown cracks. One had been leaking reactor acid on top of the lid when the flaws were found in mid-March, though - unlike eight years ago - the problem was caught long before any noticeable amount of steel had melted, according to Vito Kaminskas, Davis-Besse's director of plant engineering."

A former FirstEnergy Corp. engineer was found guilty Tuesday afternoon by a U.S. District Court jury on three of five counts he faced for lying or withholding information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about Davis-Besse's operating status in the fall of 2001. A federal jury deliberated over three days before returning the verdict against Andrew Siemaszko, a native of Poland.

A Pittsburgh-based energy advocacy group wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to delay a final decision on the licensing renewal process for Beaver Valley nuclear reactor Units 1 and 2, concerned about corrosion in a reactor containment liner. "We're not optimistic, frankly," David Hughes, executive director of Citizen Power, said Thursday. "Not because we don't believe our concerns don't have merit, but we're not confident with the NRC." A final decision had been expected Monday. But Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said Friday that timetable has been pushed back, as the NRC plans to release another report on the liner issue. A final decision could now come in early November, Sheehan said. History is on the side of Akron-based FirstEnergy, owner of the reactors, and against Citizen Power. According to NRC records, a license renewal request has never been refused, with more than half of the 104 reactors across the country seeking license renewals in the last decade. And the process cleared a big hurdle last week, with the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards recommending the license renewal. Licensing renewal

A Pittsburgh-based energy advocacy group wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to delay a final decision on the licensing renewal process for Beaver Valley nuclear reactor Units 1 and 2, concerned about corrosion in a reactor containment liner. "We're not optimistic, frankly," David Hughes, executive director of Citizen Power, said Thursday. "Not because we don't believe our concerns don't have merit, but we're not confident with the NRC." A final decision had been expected Monday. But Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said Friday that timetable has been pushed back, as the NRC plans to release another report on the liner issue. A final decision could now come in early November, Sheehan said. History is on the side of Akron-based FirstEnergy, owner of the reactors, and against Citizen Power. According to NRC records, a license renewal request has never been refused, with more than half of the 104 reactors across the country seeking license renewals in the last decade. And the process cleared a big hurdle last week, with the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards recommending the license renewal. Licensing renewal

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the operating license for two nuclear reactors in western Pennsylvania by 20 years each. The NRC extended the licenses Thursday after a series of reviews an inspections at FirstEnergy Corp.'s Beaver Valley Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactors in Shippingport, about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The original 40-year operating license for Unit 1 expires in January 2016 while Unit 2's license runs until May 2027. Those licenses now run until 2036 and 2047, respectively. The Unit 1 reactor went online in 1976 and Unit 2 in 1987.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the operating license for two nuclear reactors in western Pennsylvania by 20 years each. The NRC extended the licenses Thursday after a series of reviews an inspections at FirstEnergy Corp.'s Beaver Valley Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactors in Shippingport, about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The original 40-year operating license for Unit 1 expires in January 2016 while Unit 2's license runs until May 2027. Those licenses now run until 2036 and 2047, respectively. The Unit 1 reactor went online in 1976 and Unit 2 in 1987.

"A federal appeals court has upheld the convictions of two former nuclear plant workers in Ohio who were found guilty of helping to cover up the worst corrosion ever found at a U.S. reactor. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati found no reason to overturn the convictions of Andrew Siemaszko and David Geisen. Both were sentenced to probation and fined for misleading regulators in 2001 to delay a safety inspection at the Davis-Besse plant along Lake Erie. Inspectors later found an acid leak that nearly ate through the reactor's 6-inch-thick steel cap. The plant operated by FirstEnergy Corp. was shut down from early 2002 until 2004."

Attorneys for Andrew Siemaszko Thursday sought an acquittal for their client on the grounds that the one-time Davis-Besse employee was oblivious to errors in key documents that went to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission weeks before the plant's old reactor head nearly blew apart in 2002. A former systems engineer who FirstEnergy put in charge of the reactor head despite inadequate training for that job, Siemaszko was convicted in August by a U.S. District Court jury in Toledo on three of five felony charges of withholding vital information from a government agency. Now a resident of Spring, Texas, Siemaszko faces up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. He is to be sentenced Feb. 6 unless Judge David Katz overturns the verdicts.